


Someone's got to help me dig

by co2lneededzs



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Mentions of Death, allusions to grief sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/co2lneededzs/pseuds/co2lneededzs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's looking at him through a haze of drink, and he's so lost in sorrow that if he squints, he can almost pretend she's Azelma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone's got to help me dig

He finds her in between gravestones with an almost empty bottle of Jack in one hand, the other fisted in the loose dirt that covers her sister’s grave.  He is quiet as he approaches her, trying not to startle her.  He fails, of course.  Her hearing has always been incredible.  She’d always known when he had spent the night with her younger sister, had always been waiting the next morning when he’d slipped out of Azelma’s room.  So of course she hears him now.  She looks up, eyes wild and glassy, and he barely has time to duck before the bottle flies from her hand and smashes against a tree.  She buries her face in her knees and he closes the distance between them in a few long strides.  He kneels in front of her, grabbing the hand that has been clutching the dirt like it connects her to her sister.  She looks up at him and he’s surprised she doesn’t spit in his face.

  “Now you show up, huh asshole?”

And they’re both sitting in the graveyard, and she’s still in her black dress, and he can’t think of any good reason as to why he missed his girlfriend’s funeral, so he just wraps his arms around  Éponine  and whispers “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” into her hair as she sobs into his shirt.

She eventually pushes him away and swipes her dirt-covered hand across her face, leaving a streak of dirt on her cheek.

 

“You know,” she says, her voice harsh from crying, “I never understood what ‘Zelma saw in you.  He’s bad for you ‘Zel, I’d tell her, but she wouldn’t listen.  ‘You just don’t know him like I do  Ép,’ she’d say and I’d snort, because I knew exactly what you were, making a move on my baby sister like that, but she was eighteen and there was nothing I could do to stop her.”

And she’s wiping her hand across her nose again, and he’s not really sure which one of them moves first, but the next thing he knows she’s pressing him to the ground, and his tongue finds its way into her mouth, and she tastes like alcohol and smells like pot, but he’s so lost in sorrow that he can almost pretend she’s Azelma.  His hands make their way up under her dress, bunching up the fabric as he caresses her sides, and that touch breaks whatever spell she’s been under, and she slaps him across the face before he can react.  

 

She settles back next to the gravestone, reaching behind to grab a black bag, rooting around in it until she pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a cheap lighter.  He sits on his heels and watches has she clicks the lighter once…twice…three times and when it won’t catch she throws it and he can’t tell if she’s aiming for him or not, but it sails over his shoulder and lands with a light thud.  She buries her head in her knees again, and he has no idea what to do, so he stands up and turns to walk away when he hears her scratchy voice, muffled by her knees and the cigarette still stuck between her lips.

 

  “You got a light?"  

And he’s fumbling in his pocket for a book of matches he swiped from some bar, and she’s leaning in and the flickering light of the match glances off her face and she looks so very tired.  She leans back and takes a drag on her cigarette, and he turns the matchbook over and over in his hands and they sit in silence until she breaks it, saying “You know, I understand why you weren’t there.  Hell, if I had my choice, I wouldn’t have gone either.  But God damn it Feuilly, it would have been fucking nice to have you there.  Everyone kept fucking asking where you were and I had no God damn thing to tell them.”

 

  He’s quiet because he should have been there, but he couldn’t bring himself to put on that fucking suit and smile and pretend that it’s okay that his girlfriend is dead.  He really wishes Éponine hadn’t thrown that bottle at him, because he is far too sober for this, and Éponine is looking at him, and in the dark he can’t help but think she’s Azelma, and she’s stubbing out her cigarette on the other gravestone, and she’s standing up, slightly wobbly in her high heels, and she’s holding a hand out to him.

 

  “Take me home, jackass.”

 

  And he’s helping her into his car, and he’s driving toward her apartment, only halfway there she goes ghostly pale and when he stops at a stoplight she buries her head in her hands.

 

 “I can’t fucking do this.  All of ‘Zelma’s shit is all over the fucking place.  I can’t go back there, not now.”

 She looks like she’s going to cry again, so he puts on his blinker and turns to go to his apartment.  He and Azelma didn’t spend much time at the shit-hole apartment he calls home, so her stuff never ended up in his possession, and anything of hers is already put in boxes in his closet.  (They’ve been there for months, since the disease started to get bad.)

He leads Éponine up the stairs and holds the door for her.  He’s just finished turning the locks and she’s kissing him again and his hand weaves its way into her hair, and he’s pressed against the door, but when they break apart, chests heaving, she’s looking at him through the haze of drink and he’s completely lost in sorrow, but something in the back of his mind tells him fuck it, so he puts his hands on her shoulders and somehow they make it to the bedroom.  There’s dirt on her dress that falls onto his carpet when she pulls it over her head, but after that he’s so preoccupied that he can’t bring himself to care.

 She’s gone in the morning and the only thing left is the dirt on the floor and the lingering scent of pot smoke and whiskey.  He waits a few weeks before he goes to the coffee shop she works at, and when she sees him she smiles, but it’s not the smile of a friend.  It’s the smile of someone who is going to serve him coffee, never mind the fact that he saw her at her most venerable.  After he places his order he opens his mouth to explain, but she cuts him off with a brief shake of her head.  He smiles weakly and goes to sit down, but out of the corner of his eye he sees her turn, and the way her ponytail swings and her smile brightens is so familiar that he could almost swear he sees a ghost.  But he just takes his coffee and his sorrow, and sits at a table in the corner, praying he’ll see that ghost again.     

 


End file.
